Audio: Orson Scott Card on lefty fanatics and the coming American civil war

posted at 8:20 pm on November 28, 2006 by Allahpundit

Glenn might know how to produce these podcasts. But I know how to sell ’em.

Here’s his and Dr. Helen’s latest featuring “Ender’s Game” author Card, who was last seen around these parts equating the Democrats’ electoral victory with American defeat. His latest book, “Empire,” imagines a blue state/red state conflict set in 2008. He tells the Reynoldses that yes, in fact, it could happen here, which, while strictly true, is an idea I find to be a tad, er, “eccentric.” He does think it’s unlikely, though, and that we’re probably just in for a worldwide economic depression instead.

Listen here. If you’re pressed for time, skip ahead to about 7:30 and just groove on those vibes for about ten minutes or so. Rarely, if ever, has red meat been this red.

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I think a Civil War part Deux is highly likely. North and South are more divided than ever now. The 2 sides (left and right) want to go in entirely different directions. While the overall voting population is probably purple (to some shade or another), I don’t think this divided nation can stand like this for too much longer.

…actually, we’re in the equivalent of the 1858 mid-term elections…the election with Lincoln and Douglas debating.

The Left today is the Abolitionist Republican Left of that day. Lest you think that I’m painting them as somehow noble, rest assured that the Abolitionist party — whether mild or wild, as the folks who sponsored John Brown, the “by any means necessary” man of his day — was wild-eyed, hateful, self-righteous, and just as destructive as their opposite numbers down south.

The Fireeating party of Yancy, Rhett, Ruffin and that ilk might be thought of as the Far-Right of Hillary’s fitful dreams.

There’s not much to choose between the Supreme Court of Taney and that today, especially when you factor in the lesser judiciary of today.

Imagine if either Newt or Hillary do win the election in 2008. One side — blue or red — “seceeds” from the other, with cities demanding taxes yet disengaging from the surrounding “red” counties. Race is a factor. National origin is a factor. Factions form along the lines of party and party platform.

It’s possible.

It’s not so much North/South today, because the West is very much a factor.

The major difference today is that, unlike the world of the 1860 election, it’s a *LOT* easier to get people all worked up to want to lock horns with their neighbors.

If there is a war between red states and blue states, the red states would just need to use a little terrorism and the blue states would surrender.

I remember John Kerry declaring that we were losing the war because the terrorists were beheading people and showing it on the internet, meaning that any adversary can defeat us in war if they are just willing to use this unpreventable tactic.

I flipped around through the book and its actually fascinating. Its a intriguing storyline and ironically enough its plausible in this divided era. We think of the Liberals (I wont use blue staters because I’m in California) as hypocritical granola munching traitors and the Liberals think of Conservatives as bible thumping gun nut fascists. And how well its divided, as shown by both 00 and 04 is amazing. Hasn’t been so well divided since 1860. Btw Kristopher they’d get pissy about blue counties in red states and red counties (among which SD and Orange County in California are) in blue states.

Saying you don’t give a ragdoll’s ass about politics is like saying you don’t give a damn about OXYGEN. You care about it, but you never give it a second thought as long as YOU aren’t impacted.

They’ll care. They’ll care when their Jetta runs out of gas in the Starbucks drive-thru and people start throwing things. And by that time, I’ll have my fifty acres in Montana and they call all go to Hell on the short bus.

This idea sounds very similar to a book by David Aikman some years ago titled, “When the Almond Tree Blossoms.” Although the Civil War in that book was precipitated by a losing war in Iran, and the Soviets are called to police the U.S. as a condition of that war’s settlement. What happens then is a civil war between the puppet government of the U.S., and the “Constitutionalists,” who have a card up their sleeve: Control over three nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles.

Needless to say, I was a sucker for the headline “…coming American civil war.” I just love political thrillers!

Meh. Won’t happen. If things get bad enough that it affects the lives of the 60-70% of Americans who don’t really get worked up about these things then they will all realize how conservative they actually are… at least long enough to take care of business.

War, my ass. It’d be a bloodbath. How many lefties have guns? A few in Vermont? A few crazed bombers with explosives, Ted Kaczinski style? We’d clean up in no time. The only thing that could really stop us is that some misguidd but well intentioned people on various police forces would be trying to “keep the peace” and we’d have a hard time going through them.

As far as secession is concerned, the leftists would not be able to form a nation. Kerry (MA) would refuse to be under Clinton (NY). They would both reuse to be under Feinstein/Boxer/Pelosi (CA). The blue areas would have to be a bunch of little city states. And they would all go out of business in months, with the possible exception of the very largest cities like New York with fairly deep economic capability, plus having the Fed. Red USA would have to set up a new Fed, and then New York would start to lose much of its luster.

Red USA would get to be Red, White, and Blue again, because the national colors of the lefties would vary but fall somewhere between EnviroGreen and CommiePinko.

But it might ultimately be a good thing since the USA would be able to get abortion reform, gay reform, tax reform, tort reform, etc., etc.

urbancenturion
THe one thing we don’t do as well as they do is propaganda, you’d need a pretty good one to counter all the BS they’d be sending over the airways. Having said that, I don’t see how a ‘lefty’ nation would work economically or militarily (though it’d be very unamusing to have them act like the muslim insurgents we’ve been fighting).

LOL! I love this thread. The Blue States form an army? Yeah, right. The little princesses would suffer more casualties on the parade ground than they would in the field. We’d cut them to pieces before they got out of New Jersey.

I suspect if such a scenario unfolded, most leftists would head to Canada like the royalists did at the end of the American Revolution.

The Blue States army moves to intercept. They meet the Red staters with placards, really large street parade puppets, and ad hominem attacks.

The first battle is declared a draw.

The Red staters then wake up, pee for a *VERY* long time, blame it on Clinton, and go fishing.

The Blue staters split over ideological purity…and the button spacing on their dress uniforms, which some of their designers maintain are “very uptown” and others maintain are “soooooo last millenium”….

…ANOTHER CLUE: in 1860 there was this thing…started sort of the civil war thing we were talking about…electorate split 4 ways…get me?

I was responding to defector, who said that we haven’t been so divided since 1860 based on the elections of 2000 and 2004. 1960 and 1968 were just as close–closer, actually–in a similarly heated political environment, with a war, and eventually a Republican president (Nixon) who was loathed by the fringe left.

…but I *DO* get worked up that people are so historically illiterate that they don’t see it coming…

Better idea, all lefties move to Canada, all Canadian righties move down here … and build a freakin’ wall on the southern boarder already!

What about Reds (hate that, sounds commie) living in blue states and vise versa? Hey, I’m from Jersey/Philly … lemme tell ya’s …PEOPLE DO HAVE GUNS THERE! Blue state California has plenty of guns too … they just can’t hit anything ’cause they hold their guns all sideways. What about the Bloods and the Crips? Red and Blue squared.

Better yet, all North American libs move to Europe, all Europeans with balls enough to fight islamism move to the U.S. and Canada.

The only reason it isn’t an actual war right now is because the sides aren’t using real bullets, just words.

The ONLY reason we’re not currently battling it out is because we can’t tell each other apart visually. If liberals all had on blue jackets, and conservatives all had on red jackets … it would get real ugly, real quick.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that … try putting an anti-liberal sticker on your car and see how long it takes before your car is vandalized.

There is one other reason that major violence has not broken out. Conservatives can’t muster more than 50 people at a rally or protest, no matter how good the cause. It’s disgusting. But I would predict that if you had 10,000 conservatives to match the 10,000 far-left marchers at any major rally … it would be on and the police would have all they can handle.

People might just die.

How many conservatives would have stood by if the liberals had rioted after losing the last election? I wonder if we’d sit and watch them burn our cars and torch local businesses. I believe that’s what would have happened in some areas had they not won either of the houses.

Even if a Civil War occured here again, it would last no more than 15 minutes. After that, the Cut & Run lefties would be outta here while the 70% of the military that votes Republican would be watching the unemployed hippies flee to Canada.

The Blue states would pull a Hezbollah vs. Israel campaign, or preemptively surrender, continue terrorist bombings, and try to maximize world support through faked photos via Reuters and false reports of atrocities via AP.

If a fight did occur between liberal amerika and conservative AMERICA, you all would be surprised at how the blue staters would conduct such a war. The leftist blue state libs would be a formidable opponent because they perceive Christian, conservative patriotic AMERICANS as the real enemy. The libs truly hate conservatives. The left sees red state AMERICA as more of a threat than al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc. They think Bush worse than Bin Laden, Cheney worse than AmadinnerJacket, Halliburton worse than the Taliban, etc.
Don’t underestimate their hatred. True, they are natural pacifists. But if their beloved pillars of leftist lunacy were at stake (abortion on demand, gay marriage, affirmative action, et al), they would fight and fight hard.

Abolitionists weren’t “lefties”, they were Christians who used the Bible to back their claim that slavery was very unChristlike. — Tony737

Hint: it was the 19th Century. *BOTH* sides used the Bible to justify their point of view.

Abolitionists also talked trash about the Bible for its portrayal and seeming approval of slavery, as there are points in both Testaments where you could cherrypick verses which came down on either side of the issue.

For that matter, Garrison burned the Constitution at a 4th of July outing.

The abolitionist party was sort of a combination of both sides of today’s abortion debate…but the people themselves were a *LOT* like the Blue staters today.

Glenn might know how to produce these podcasts. But I know how to sell ‘em.
Yup, we’re in awe. Now impress us and FIX THE BLINKING MCCAIN AD

Agree – the McCain ad is ruining your site. Besides, I don’t think the ad is working – some of us are ready to poke McCain’s eyes out with sharp sticks.

On a related note: In the meantime I’m working around the problem by “masking” portions of your page by covering it with other windows on my desktop. The good news is it covers up *ALL* the ads, not just the McCain grand mal-athon. Problem solved!

Don’t underestimate their hatred. True, they are natural pacifists. But if their beloved pillars of leftist lunacy were at stake (abortion on demand, gay marriage, affirmative action, et al), they would fight and fight hard.

mountainmanbob

Is now the time I mention the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) the eco-terrorist group who goes about bombing car dealerships and torching new subdivisions?

Firefox + AdBlock + NoScript = YOU are in control of what ads you see.

I’ll listen to the audio tonight to see what this is about, because I find the concept interesting. I suspect a scenario like this won’t play out that far in a large scale, though, because people are sheeple nowadays.

The idea of individual cities or counties “succeeding” isn’t that far-fetched, though. Just look at all of the places in the US that have proclaimed themselves as “sanctuary cities”. On the other side of the spectrum, you’ve go the Minutemen and that one county that’s trying to clamp down on illegals. Hmmmm, come to think of it, I suppose we’re already having a civil war… just on a smaller and bloodless scale.

With poll after poll showing that 80% of Americans want less immigration, legal or illegal, and the government refusing the will of the people, we have the ingredients for Civil War fomentation.

We have a President and Congress that refuse to enforce the rule of law. We have activist Judges legislating from the bench which effectively disenfranchises the American voter. Both parties pander to their special interests by exporting jobs and giving the country away to foreignors both here and abroad. The system isn’t working for the average citizen anymore and that will be the cause of the next civil war.

Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form…

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

If THIS doesn’t spark new life in the anti 2nd amendment democrat crowd, nothing will.

Of course, we are talking about the kind of liberal lunatics who see nothing wrong with someone swearing thier oath to office on a Koran(the Muslim elected in MN), a book that clearly says that those who refuse to worship Islam need to be KILLED…

My question is, what will spark The War Between The States redux? Could it be our own “Palestinian” problem brewing in the southwest and spreading? Methinks so…

Aunt B on November 29, 2006 at 7:39 AM

As a longtime resident of Southern California, I couldn’t agree more. Revolution is a-brewin’, enabled by liberal policies toward illegal immigrants. And these ‘southwest Palestinians’ are anything but pacifists.

The first Civil War came after a peaceful cessession was followed by Licoln’s decision to unite the nation by force. Without such a strong-willed person presiding in an equally strong Executive branch, I can’t see that happening again. Succession will mean good-by and that’s all.

However, the not-so-up-on-politics majority of America does hold strong opinions on the environment, global warming and the nothing-but-negative consequences they have been told will unfold. The environment has, like slavery, both moral and economic components. Americans are looking to the federal government to solve the problem. Most will expect that, naturally, people will have to be coerced into conforming with resulting environmental policy. I mean, we’ve only got one planet, right? They do not understand that most environmental doom and gloom discussion is political in nature.

Also consider that a big part of our national self-loathing is a collective guilt that comes from believing we are killing the planet.

Politicians, however, well understand that the citizen’s perception of doom is more important than the reality of the situation. They will exploit this fear to get elected, making promises along the way. at some point, they will need more powers to “solve” the problem of saving the planet.

Our government, set up with limited power, is not able to “solve” the problem without additional powers to tell us what to do and when to do it and how much it will cost for the license. If that is allowed by us, then we will get to be the point where we will begin sliding into civil war. We can guess how the population will react based the divisions today, but I don’t think we are there yet.

What individual freedom, what individual life can be valued above saving the planet? NONE. The path to dictatorial powers may begin with this motto. If only the majority of people understood what the founding fathers did: when empowering the state, it’s more important to consider the potential ill than the potential good it can do.

The nearest thing to a civil war in the U.S. was the War of Independnece. The Confederate War was a war with a free and independent country. If I can’t quit my job without my employer forcing me back, that’s slavery. If a sovereign State can’t separate from the Union, that’s likewise slavery. I know Republicans have always been hypocrites (just not as bad as democrats) but get it straight. There can be no “civil war part deux” until there’s a civil war part une.

voiceofreason quoted why the formation of the Confederacy meant that the Confederacy was as legitimate nation as was the United States.